Powerpoint

PowerPoint Skill

Generates, updates, and manages PowerPoint slide decks using python-pptx with YAML-driven content and styling definitions.

Overview

This skill provides Python scripts that consume YAML configuration files to produce PowerPoint slide decks. Each slide is defined by a content.yaml file describing its layout, text, and shapes. A style.yaml file defines dimensions, template configuration, layout mappings, metadata, and defaults.

SKILL.md covers technical reference: prerequisites, commands, script architecture, API constraints, and troubleshooting. For conventions and design rules (element positioning, visual quality, color and contrast, contextual styling), follow pptx.instructions.md.

Prerequisites

PowerShell

The Invoke-PptxPipeline.ps1 script handles virtual environment creation and dependency installation automatically via uv sync. Requires uv, Python 3.11+, and PowerShell 7+.

Installing uv

If uv is not installed:

# macOS / Linux
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Windows
powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"

# Via pip (fallback)
pip install uv

System Dependencies (Export and Validation)

The Export and Validate actions require LibreOffice for PPTX-to-PDF conversion and optionally pdftoppm from poppler for PDF-to-JPG rendering. When pdftoppm is not available, PyMuPDF handles the image rendering.

The Validate action's vision-based checks require the GitHub Copilot CLI for model access.

# macOS
brew install --cask libreoffice
brew install poppler        # optional, provides pdftoppm

# Linux
sudo apt-get install libreoffice poppler-utils

# Windows (winget preferred, choco fallback)
winget install TheDocumentFoundation.LibreOffice
# choco install libreoffice-still      # alternative
# poppler: no winget package; use choco install poppler (optional, provides pdftoppm)

Copilot CLI (Vision Validation)

The validate_slides.py script uses the GitHub Copilot SDK to send slide images to vision-capable models. The Copilot CLI must be installed and authenticated:

# Install Copilot CLI
npm install -g @github/copilot-cli

# Authenticate (uses the same GitHub account as VS Code Copilot)
copilot auth login

# Verify
copilot --version

Required Files

• style.yaml — Dimensions, defaults, template configuration, and metadata
• content.yaml — Per-slide content definition (text, shapes, images, layout)
• (Optional) content-extra.py — Custom Python for complex slide drawings

Content Directory Structure

All slide content lives under the working directory's content/ folder:

content/
├── global/
│   ├── style.yaml              # Dimensions, defaults, template config, and theme metadata
│   └── voice-guide.md          # Voice and tone guidelines
├── slide-001/
│   ├── content.yaml            # Slide 1 content and layout
│   └── images/                 # Slide-specific images
│       ├── background.png
│       └── background.yaml     # Image metadata sidecar
├── slide-002/
│   ├── content.yaml            # Slide 2 content and layout
│   ├── content-extra.py        # Custom Python for complex drawings
│   └── images/
│       └── screenshot.png
├── slide-003/
│   ├── content.yaml
│   └── images/
│       ├── diagram.png
│       └── diagram.yaml
└── ...

Global Style Definition (style.yaml)

The global style.yaml defines dimensions, template configuration, layout mappings, metadata, and defaults. Color and font choices are specified per-element in each slide's content.yaml rather than centralized in the style file.

See the style.yaml template for the full template, field reference, and usage instructions.

Per-Slide Content Definition (content.yaml)

Each slide's content.yaml defines layout, text, shapes, and positioning. All position and size values are in inches. Color values use #RRGGBB hex format or @theme_name references.

Text contract: markdown-like list lines in textbox.text and shape.text are interpreted as PowerPoint lists during rendering. Unordered markers (-, +, *) become bulleted paragraphs, ordered markers (1., 1)) become auto-numbered paragraphs, and leading indentation maps to paragraph level.

See the content.yaml template for the full template, supported element types, supported shape types, and usage instructions.

Complex Drawings (content-extra.py)

When a slide requires complex drawings that cannot be expressed through content.yaml element definitions, create a content-extra.py file in the slide folder. The render() function signature is fixed. The build script calls it after placing standard content.yaml elements.

See the content-extra.py template for the full template, function parameters, and usage guidelines.

Security Validation

content-extra.py execution is disabled by default. When a slide folder contains one and --allow-scripts is not passed, the build fails with an error naming the file. Pass --allow-scripts to authorize execution after reviewing the script.

When execution is authorized, the build script performs AST-based static analysis before running the file and rejects the patterns below. This analysis is a lint that catches obvious mistakes early. It is not a security boundary: a blocked module reached through an alias is not detected, and pathlib and open are permitted. Authorization is the control.

Allowed imports:

• pptx and all pptx.* submodules
• Safe standard-library modules (e.g., math, copy, json, re, pathlib, collections, itertools, functools, typing, enum, dataclasses, decimal, fractions, string, textwrap)

Blocked imports:

• subprocess, os, shutil, socket, ctypes, signal, multiprocessing, threading, http, urllib, ftplib, smtplib, imaplib, poplib, xmlrpc, webbrowser, code, codeop, compileall, py_compile, zipimport, pkgutil, runpy, ensurepip, venv, sqlite3, tempfile, shelve, dbm, pickle, marshal, importlib, sys, telnetlib
• Any third-party package not on the allowlist

Blocked builtins:

• Dangerous: eval, exec, __import__, compile, breakpoint
• Indirect bypass: getattr, setattr, delattr, globals, locals, vars
• Attribute-form calls onto builtins, os, sys, subprocess, and importlib (for example builtins.eval(...))

`--allow-scripts` flag:

Pass --allow-scripts to authorize execution of content-extra.py files. Without it, a present script fails the build rather than being skipped, so a deck never silently loses custom drawings. The flag authorizes execution; it does not skip the lint.

This is a behavior change. A deck that previously built with a content-extra.py present now requires --allow-scripts, and a script relying on a blocked import no longer has a bypass.

python scripts/build_deck.py \
  --content-dir content/ \
  --style content/global/style.yaml \
  --output slide-deck/presentation.pptx \
  --allow-scripts

When validation fails, the build raises ContentExtraError with a message identifying the violation and file path.

Script Reference

The full command surface lives in references/script-reference.md: build a deck, build from a template, update specific slides, extract content from an existing PPTX, validate, export slides to images or SVG, dry-run validation, generate theme variants, and embed audio.

Script Architecture

The build and extraction scripts use shared modules in the scripts/ directory:

| Module | Purpose |